Manchester might not have produced a Barclays Premier League title-winning team last year, but City and United have paired up to help crown their hometown as the UK's greatest sporting city.

Beating London and Glasgow to the accolade, Manchester topped a table of 48 towns and cities from a 5,000-fan survey in a victory for north over south, with the research commissioned by ESPN.

Among the categories ranked were value for money, success, atmosphere, history and transport links, with the victorious city scoring particularly high for its local talent and venues.

Manchester has been crowned as the UK's greatest sporting city and can boast the talents of Wayne Rooney

Manchester City striker Sergio Aguero did not win the league last year but contributed to his city's victory

Mark Cueto of Sale Sharks is another star of his sport helping to add to Manchester's sporting legacy

Northern cities dominated the top 10, with Sunderland and Leeds following up behind Manchester, London and Glasgow in the leading five. Blackpool suffered the ignominy of finishing bottom.

Manchester can boast two of the Premier League's top four teams, as well as producing a host of stars from rugby, cricket and boxing. In the Etihad Stadium and its two Old Trafford venues, for football and cricket, the city can boast some of the best stadia worldwide.

ESPN conducted the research with the help of the universities of Gloucestershire and Bath, surveying 5,000 fans nationwide before cross-referencing with almost 100 third-party sources to produce the final result.

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Senior editor of ESPN.co.uk Steven Saunders, said: 'We set out to examine what really makes a great sporting city and knew that begins with fans.

'A great sporting city has to perform well in a variety of the categories, and Manchester should be proud of its victory.

'The city's high score for local talent shows that it's not just the big name buys like (Sergio) Aguero and (Wayne) Rooney that make Manchester such a great sporting city, but the likes of Mark Cueto as well.'

Old Trafford, home of Manchester United, is the largest club stadium in England with a capacity of 75,731

Manchester City are expanding their Etihad Stadium home, another example of the city's world-class stadia

Lancashire County Cricket Club play at their own Old Trafford home; Manchester scored highly for venues

Among the notable other placings, 'second city' Birmingham was surprisingly low in 17th while Luton, Stoke-on-Trent and Bolton edged ahead of Blackpool at the bottom of the table in 47th, 46th and 45th respectively.

Professor Andrew Parker of the University of Gloucestershire, said: 'Manchester has definitely earned its selection as the ESPN Greatest Sporting City in the UK.

The FA Cup and Premier League were won by London clubs but the city as a whole could only finish second

Transport was one of the many variables that ESPN's 5,000-fan survey took into account to form the table

Blackpool's football club is troubled, and the town was bottom of the table, finishing behind Luton and Stoke

'Our research, over several months, gathered opinions from in-depth focus groups, followed by an online survey of more than 5,000 sports fans across the UK, which was then cross-referenced with third party data from more than 100 different sources.